Posted on 09/12/2008 7:47:36 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Barack Obama knows it. The election he had in the bag is slipping away.
The selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has so thrown him off stride, as it has most other Democrats, that all the momentum he had has vanished. He’s getting panicky advice from everywhere. He intends to launch more and sharper attacks, abandoning any pretense of a new and different, more civil campaign.
Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message. With every advantage in the primaries, Obama couldn’t win the big states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania — against Hillary Clinton, even when he got to define the rules for running against him. She could never risk alienating the base she’ll need in 2012; John McCain and Sarah Palin have no such constraints — hence the panic.
For a “change” candidate, Obama appears to be a man locked in time, unable to move past criticism, unable to move from the grip of the Democratic left, unable to adapt to the changed reality that the campaign is not the referendum on the war in Iraq or on the administration of George W. Bush that he’d envisioned.
He’s begun to sound dated. Last week, for example, he devoted valuable campaign days — less than two months remain — into explaining a silly “lipstick on a pig” line. The McCain campaign had reacted, accusing him of making the reference to Palin. “I don’t care what they say about me,” Obama responded. “But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and ‘Swiftboat politics.’ Enough is enough,” he said. (The Swiftboat reference is from the 2004 campaign of John Kerry).
The Democratic left is still seething from the Kerry campaign’s loss and is determined to see Bush expelled from the White House in disgrace — the reason it is locked in to making this a referendum on the administration now ending.
It barely worked when the maverick McCain, no darling of the Bushites, got the nomination. With Palin, the Washington outsider, the “third term” argument is plainly absurd. But Obama can’t let go, just as the lefties can’t let go of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth defeat of Kerry. He can’t move on.
Obama has the habit, too, of reminding voters of their doubts about him, as he did in reminding a Detroit audience that he’s been accused of being less interested in protecting you from terrorists than reading them their rights. And, when he professes love of country as his basis for refusing to allow the McCain campaign to attack his words, he raises questions about why he finds the affirmation of love necessary.
Obama will lose because with less than two months remaining voters won’t be able to get comfortable with him. He can’t stay on message and he can’t avoid sending signals that interfere with the message when he does.
McCain, on the other hand, has been superb going back at least to Obama’s European tour. Mainstream America is comfortable with him and, with Palin’s selection, conservatives who had their doubts are onboard. The GOP is energized and suddenly an unwinnable election is reversed.
Obama got this far by winning small states and Southern states he has no chance of carrying in November. In Georgia, for example, the latest Insider Advantage poll has McCain pulling 56 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Obama, numbers that are not likely to change more than 4 percentage points in November. The undecideds and those who intend to vote for third-party campaigns are at 6 percent.
In this election, voters will decide early. Obama’s been in a yearlong campaign; McCain’s familiar. The two are sufficiently exposed and known for voters to make a decision now.
It’s not over. But it’s getting there — and Obama knows it.
Indeed, it is.
You mean "community organizers"? Is that what they do?
**The fact that they had Kerry winning big this time 4 years ago doesn’t give me much confidence in this.**
It does give me some. The typical pattern is for the Democrat to come out of the convention cycle with a good lead, double digits, and for it to dissipate. The narrowing occurs in the last weeks. That does not work the other way around. The Republican candidate for President does not follow the same pattern. Typically it is Dems lose support and Repubs gain support during the last few weeks. The question is whether the angle of the ascent and descent lines cross before the election.
There is reason to be hopeful based on past polling patterns.
There is something out of the ordinary about him. I can't see somebody with no more bottom than he has getting this far on his own. Someone, who we can't see, has been helping him at all the right times and places.
Well, I won't encourage that, lest I be charged with rabble-rousing...
IMO, 0bama never had anything but the media and the far left liberals. They were also the only ones paying attention until now. Nonpolitical type people really watched the convention and they made up their mind about him then.
That McCain got so many viewers had a lot to with all the fanfare of Sarah Palin but it also had to do with a lot of people praying that there was a much better choice than 0bama.
If the media does turn on zerobama, the Pubbies better remember, as McCain learned, that that does not make the media the Pubbies friend.
My money is on Little Georgie Soros. The Kingmaker.
yeah, you’re right. But it would be my doing, my thought.
I received no answer, as yet.
I am loaded for bear.
There won't be any violent rioting in my neighborhood.
Not for long, anyway.
Maybe someone could have him go shooting with Dick Cheney :)
That would really be fun (for us!!)
I tell ‘ya - Mom’s come home and she ain’t fooling around. The spineless are not happy!
The private polls are showing what is happening much more graphically than the public ones. For one thing, there is a realistic apportionment of dims and republicans. Also, since they are not done for public consumption, they are more apt to be a true snapshot of the contest. And finally any political operative worth his salt, knows that this thing has been lost. The only hope and it is a small one at that, is for Hillary to ride in on her white charger. The only way she would do this is if she believed that she could really win and could dispose of Obambi at a later date. She is just not going to risk a double loss at this point which would further seal her fate in 2012. She wants the grand prize, not the runner up.
A lot of them seem to seethe at their own birth. They seem to be self loathing people, angry at our great nation, and full of guilt at something...
I would like McCain to not just beat Obama but to crush him. And I have a feeling that is what McCain will try to do.
That's only one day for each state. ;-)
McCain and Palin have no problem staying on message and it is frustrating the Dems.
What a stark contrast to Cynthia Tucker! I’m kind of surprised this got published, but glad it did.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.